It was Mr. Sandboys’ special delight, of an evening, to read the newspaper aloud to his family, and endeavour to impress his wife and children with the same sense of the rascality of the outer world as reigned within his own bosom. But his denunciations, as is too often the case, served chiefly to draw attention and to excite curiosity touching subjects, which, without them, would probably have remained unheard of: so that his family, unknown to each other, were secretly sighing for that propitious turn of destiny which should impel them where fashion and amusement never failed, as their father said, to lure their victim from more serious pursuits. The mind of Mrs. Sandboys was almost as circumscribed as that of the good Cursty himself. If Sandboys loved his country, and its mountains, she was lost in her kitchen, her beds, and her buckbasket. His soul was hemmed in by “the Hay-Stacks,” Red Pike, Melbrake, and Grassmoor; and hers, by the four walls of Hassness house. She prided herself on her puddings, and did not hesitate to take her stand upon her piecrust. She had often been heard to say, with extreme satisfaction, that her “Buttered sops” were the admiration of the country round—and it was her boast that she could turn the large thin oat-cake at a toss; while the only feud she had ever been known to have in all her life, was with Mrs. Gill, of Low-Houses, Newlands, who declared that in her opinion the cakes were better made with two “backbwords” than one; and though several attempts had been made towards reconciliation, she had ever since withstood all advances towards a renewal of the ancient friendship that had cemented the two families. It was her glory that certain receipts had been in her family—the heirlooms of the eldest daughter—for many generations; and, when roused on the subject, she had been heard to exclaim, that she would not part with her wild raspberry jelly but with her life; and, come what may, she had made up her mind, to carry her “sugared curds” down with her to her grave.